I did up a couple of new prints for my Gallery in Florida, Earth and Spirit Garden Gallery.  Was a fun exercise creating them (photography and digital manipulation).  I needed some new prints for my living room in Florida as well that I have been promising my wife to create for a couple of years now.  So it was time…

I don’t enjoy the digital printing or wrapping the canvas around stretcher bars part much but that is part of the process.  This batch of printing would have been easy but I ran out of canvas and ink so I had to track that down.  After spending $300 on a roll of canvas and a couple of ink cartridges, I was ready to start.

They stopped making the canvas I have been using for years (and that I have created custom ICC profiles for) so I had to find a new batch.  I went with Epson Premium Canvas in a satin finish.  It is a lot thicker/stiffer/shinier than their Waterproof canvas that I used for years.  Getting it to load into the printer was a bit of an issue as well as the corners curl up in an awkward way causing to catch as it goes into the printer.  After much experimentation, I found that by notching off the corners on a 45 degree angle, it goes through a lot easier.  Next issue was ICC profile.  Since I don’t have the ability to make custom ICC profiles any more (don’t have access to the software), I was hoping Epson had a good off the rack profile.  I hit their website and downloaded their recommended profile and loaded it into my profile library.  I needed to make sure this was going to be to my liking so sized down a print and got ready to run a test off.

Since my printer ink was out in a couple of cartridges.  I got new ones loaded in.  Also, since the printer hadn’t run in a while, I knew some of the inkjets would be clogged.  I ran the software that cleans the ink nozzles (and wastes a bunch of ink) and ran a test patter.  Still clogged.  Did it again (and wasted more ink).  Ran the test pattern and still a bit clogged but better.  Third time was the charm.  Was ready for my test print to check how the ICC profile was working.

Well test print came out fine.  I was finally ready to do some actual printing.  I had a number of prints between the gallery and my living room to run so it took the bulk of the afternoon to get done.  I was pleased with the print quality on the Epson Satin Canvas.  Seemed like color was a bit more vibrant and blacks were definitely a bit richer.  Cool.

I had figured out all the stretcher bar sizing and hit Rhino Art in Encinitas for the bars early in case they didn’t have everything I needed before I left for Florida.  They had plenty of stock.  Stoked!   Everything is now waiting to be packed up and shipped out.  I build them onsite in Florida as it is easier to ship this way.

Like I said, I don’t enjoy the building of the frames (getting them square can sometimes be a pain) and stretching the canvas but they look killer when they are done.  The new canvas is thicker and stiffer.  We’ll see how that affects the final build process.  My guess is it will make the corner folding a bit more difficult but we’ll see.  That will be for another entry.

Here are a couple: